Wall St. gains ground as it notches a winning week and another Dow record
Stocks closed higher on Wall Street as the market posted its fifth straight gain and the Dow Jones Industrial Average notched another record high.
The S&P 500 rose 0.3%. The benchmark index’s 1.7% gain for the week erased most of its loss from last week.
The Dow rose 1% as it nudged past its most recent high set last week, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.2%.
Markets have been volatile over the last few weeks, losing ground in the runup to elections in November, then surging following Donald Trump’s victory, before falling again. The S&P 500 has been steadily rising throughout this week to within close range of its record. It’s now within about 0.5% of its all-time high set last week.
“Overall, market behavior has normalized following an intense few weeks,” said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide, in a statement.
Several retailers jumped after giving Wall Street encouraging financial updates.
Gap soared 12.8% after handily beating analysts’ third-quarter earnings and revenue expectations, while raising its own revenue forecast for the year. Discount retailer Ross Stores rose 2.2% after raising its earnings forecast for the year.
EchoStar fell 2.8% after DirecTV called off its purchase of that company’s Dish Network unit.
Smaller company stocks had some of the biggest gains. The Russell 2000 index rose 1.8%.
A majority of stocks in the S&P 500 gained ground, but those gains were kept in check by slumps for several big technology companies.
Nvidia fell 3.2%. Its pricey valuation makes it among the heaviest influences on whether the broader market gains or loses ground. The company has grown into a nearly $3.6 trillion behemoth because of demand for its chips used in artificial-intelligence technology.
Intuit, which makes TurboTax and other accounting software, fell 5.7%. It gave investors a quarterly earnings forecast that fell short of analysts’ expectations.
Facebook owner Meta Platforms fell 0.7% following a decision by the Supreme Court to allow a multibillion-dollar class action investors’ lawsuit to proceed against the company. It stems from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 20.63 points to 5,969.34. The Dow climbed 426.16 points to 44,296.51, and the Nasdaq picked up 42.65 points to close at 2,406.67.
European markets closed mostly higher and Asian markets ended mixed. Crude oil prices rose.